Yakass Home
Spear Up!
- Category: Equipment, rigging & preparation
- Published on Saturday, 09 October 2010 18:51
- Written by Holger
On a multi day kayaking trip, a lightweight tarp has always been a 'must have' item for me. Few things are as multifunctional as a tarp. It can protect you from rain & wind, create shade & shelter, catch rain (drinking water ), and combined with a couple of sticks it even doubles as a stretcher.
Unfortunately, safe attachment points like trees are not always readily available wherever you go. So I started to search for an appropriate pole to keep the tarp up with. Normal steel camping poles are too heavy and they rust easily, my paddle is not sturdy enough, and carbon fibre tarp poles are very expensive. Following the old rule that everything you take on a trip should have more than one function, I finally found the perfect pole: A 2 metre, 2 piece 'Hawaiian Sling' fishing spear. It is lightweight, corrosion resistant, affordable, easy to pack and doubles perfectly as a tarp-pole.
I chose a 2 piece spear for easier storage. The two one metre pieces also give me more options to build up the tarp. The spear includes an exchangeable 5 point fishing head, and a one point crabbing head.
The whole set-up packs down to two small, easy to store packets.
More information to tarps can be found here.
4 minutes ago
